Mindset

I was holding one of our new kittens the other day.

I sat down with her, hoping she’d finally just curl up on me for a minute.

She immediately took off.

“She never just wants to lay on me when I sit down,” I said.

And my son, with the completely unfiltered honesty only a kid can deliver, said:

“Well, maybe it’s because you’re kinda fat.”

Cool.

Cool cool cool.

There are certain things your child can say that you know, logically, were not designed to emotionally destroy you.

And then there are the things they say that somehow locate your deepest insecurity, walk directly up to it, and punch it in the face.

This was the second kind.

Because my first thought wasn’t:

He’s a kid. He doesn’t understand what that word means to me.

It wasn’t:

The kitten is a kitten and probably just wants to run around.

It wasn’t even:

Ouch.

It was:

Yeah. I am just a fatty.

And then:

Why would she want to sit on my fat lap?

And then, almost immediately:

Why even bother trying?

And THAT is the part that gets me.

Not that my son called me “kinda fat.”

But how quickly my own brain took his comment and turned it into an identity.

I wasn’t a woman who has been trying to take care of herself.

I wasn’t a mom sitting on the couch holding her new kitten.

I wasn’t a whole person with a body that happens to carry more fat than I want it to right now.

I was just a fatty.

And apparently the kitten agreed.

Which, with approximately five seconds of emotional distance from the situation, is objectively ridiculous.

She’s a kitten.

I’m pretty sure she didn’t jump off my lap because she conducted a quick assessment of my body composition and decided the conditions were unacceptable.

But shame isn’t particularly interested in logic.

It heard one word.

Fat.

And it grabbed it.

See?

Other people see it too.

This is what you are.

Why even bother?

That last one is the dangerous one for me.

Because I’ve been here before.

The place where not seeing the progress I want fast enough becomes a reason to stop trying altogether.

Where one bad weigh-in becomes, What’s the point?

Where one comment becomes, See? Nothing is changing.

Where feeling bad about my body somehow becomes a reason to stop taking care of it.

But this time, after the initial sting wore off, another thought came in.

Fat is not my identity.

I can have fat on my body.

I can have more of it than I want.

I can want to lose weight.

I can actively be working toward changing my body.

And none of that makes fat who I am.

I don’t have to pretend my son’s comment didn’t hurt.

It did.

I don’t have to immediately counter it with, No! I’m beautiful! I love every inch of my body!

That’s not even what this is about.

This is about refusing to take something about my body and turn it into a definition of myself.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I don’t just do this with my body.

I’ve carried shame as an identity for so long that sometimes it feels like I’ve been doing it for lifetimes.

It’s my go-to.

It’s familiar.

It’s addicting.

And as uncomfortable as it is to admit, sometimes there’s even a kind of pleasure in it.

Not because I actually want to feel terrible about myself.

But because I know this place.

I know how to suffer here.

I know the thoughts.

I’m worthless.

Why even bother?

I know exactly how the story goes.

And recently, I felt myself going there again.

Back into shame.

Back into the familiar suffering.

Back into those thoughts that wanted to tell me what something happening in my life meant about me and who I was.

Except this time, I watched it happen.

I watched that familiar suffering show up and try to claim me.

And instead of completely disappearing into it, I could see what was happening.

Oh.

Here we go again.

This is the story.

I’ve been working really hard on recognizing these stories when they come up instead of automatically believing them.

Not necessarily getting better at feeling them.

But getting better at seeing them.

I could still feel the heaviness there.

Honestly, I can still feel it sometimes.

Like a shadow hanging around, waiting for another opportunity to claim me.

But it isn’t becoming me this time.

And really, that’s exactly what had happened with the kitten.

My son said one thing.

And within seconds, shame had turned it into an entire story about who I was and why I should stop trying.

Then I noticed something else.

Lately, it had felt like one shameful thing after another.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

I was sitting there feeling all of it, listening to that familiar voice tell me:

You’re worthless.

Feeling that familiar shameful identity settle over me again.

I know this version of myself.

I’ve been her for a very long time.

But this time, I could almost see the whole thing from the outside.

And I thought:

Oh my God.

I’ve been looking at my life through a shame lens.

Of course I’m seeing shame everywhere.

I’m focused on the things that confirm it.

Something happens, I interpret it through shame, I feel more shame, and then I notice the next thing that gives me another reason to feel ashamed.

Maybe it wasn’t just one shameful thing after another.

Maybe shame was the thing connecting them.

And suddenly I had this little aha moment.

If I can do that with shame…

Can I do it with gratitude?

If I’m constantly looking for things that confirm shame, what happens if I start looking for things to be grateful for instead?

And if I take it even further—could focusing on gratitude actually attract more experiences into my life that give me something to be grateful for?

I don’t know.

But I know I’ve watched the opposite happen.

I’ve watched shame become a lens.

I’ve watched one experience seem to lead straight into another and another because that’s what I was looking for.

That’s what I was expecting.

That’s what felt familiar.

And for a long time, I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

I just thought that was my life.

Maybe that’s what I’m most curious about now.

What happens when I stop looking at my life through the emotion I’ve practiced for so long?

What happens if shame isn’t the place I automatically come home to?

What if I practice gratitude instead?

I don’t know yet.

But if I’ve spent this long practicing shame, I think I’d like to find out what happens when I practice something else.

Because all of this started with one completely unfiltered comment from a kid who probably hasn’t thought about it again since.

Meanwhile, I’m over here having an entire existential crisis because a kitten wouldn’t sit on my lap.

Motherhood is magical.

But I’m not giving up.

Not because I’m suddenly unbothered by my body.

I’m not.

Not because words don’t hurt me anymore.

They do.

And not because shame doesn’t still know exactly where to find me.

It does.

I’m going to keep going because fat is not my identity.

Shame isn’t my identity either.

Shame can show up.

I can feel it without letting it become me.

But I don’t have to keep practicing it.

And maybe now I get to decide what I practice instead.